Disquisition by Scripps, E.W., On being a free man, July 11, 1920

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The one absolute essential for my happiness - I might almost say, to I\'
eXistenoe - has been perso~lal freedom. My memory extends far -back through TrI:! ~_
&11.d ohildhood even to infantile days.
I remember wl1en in su;~r I wore a. li ttle, f ina ly checlred blue frock.
I remember aiaother frock. Its color was mainly red. It was a plaia. - ra~
large squares, the red squares perhaps 1 inch or J:!tinches in dimension. These __
divided from each other by rather narrow black lines - perhaps half a dozen.
I was not dissimilar from other children in being a rebel against all auth-ority
- maternal, paternal, or fraternal.
I might have been a little different from other children as I .vas ullta..'llCable.
Forced to be more or less obedient by the daily use and almost hourly use of :.~the~'1
swi tcn, and later by more formidable instruments {I remember a good thick rattan
cane, and also a leather strap -- a segment of one of the lines which farmors use ~
guide their horaee;" 1 submitted only to force, and that sullenly.
By good or 111 fortune, very early in my life I escaped from the g'J.lling ~8I.
sure of authority. Early in my fifteenth year my father beca...'1le ill and, althGt1,3h
he lingered for a number of years, it was only as a bedridden invalid. Liy :nother"
housewifely duties, including that of nurse to my father, gave her small opportullit1
to exercise control over IlEl.
We lived on my father's farm. My elder brothers had all left the farm. O%J
sacrificed his life in battle dur ing the Civil "'''ar, and another was crippled aD4
4is­remained
long in a military hospital. Two other brothers \vere in businesS in a
ta.nt city. The youngest of my brothers, four years my senior, was a. good part of
the time attending a boys' sohool. But even when he was at home, though he was
larger than than I was, he was not so a.lert minded and was far more submissive to
my in:f1uenoe than I was to his.
Ohio University Libraries, E.W. Scripps Papers, MSS 117, Series 4, http://bit.ly/scripps_mss117